Cauliflower Cheese Soup

My husband loves cauliflower and I love cheese. It seemed a no-brainer to me that I should try to find a soup with both of these ingredients. However, I was startled to find that most recipes with these two ingredients also had: sausage, a whole block of velveeta, or bacon.

The solution: I combined multiple recipes from allrecipes.com and read plenty of comments from these recipes and came up with my own soup. I am very satisfied with the results! :)


What I like: the vibrant colors of the veggies and the soothing taste of a wonderful broth. Yum!

Cauliflower Cheese Soup
Ingredients:
*4 cups of chicken broth
*One head of cauliflower, chopped
*3 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
*One large carrot or 8-10 baby carrots, sliced
*1/2 onion (or if desired: one whole onion), sliced
*salt
*pepper
*thyme
*paprika (optional)
*1 - 1.5 cups of milk/half n half/heavy cream (your choice!)
*4 oz. velveeta (optional), cubed
*shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
1) In a large soup pan, combine broth, cauliflower, celery, carrot, onion, and spices. Boil 5-10 minutes or until tender.
2) Add milk-base of your choice, 1 cup of shredded cheese, and velveeta (optional). Simmer on low heat until blended. Taste and add spices as necessary.
3) Pour into bowls, top with shredded cheese. Add additional paprika and pepper (if desired).
4) Enjoy with your fave bread! It makes approx. 4 servings.


Comments:
*The recipes usually insist that you blend all the ingredients in a blender after it has cooked and before eating it. However, Paul and I like to see the veggies in our soup, so we did not do this. I thought I would throw the suggestion out there for any of you who are weird about texture!

*Even though I do not like velveeta as a major part of my meals, I do admit that a tiny bit does come in handy. I added no more than 4 oz. of velveeta to this soup to make the broth a bit creamier. It also tastes fine without it.

*For some reason, I LOVE the smoky-sweet taste of paprika with cheese soups, so this is my own addition. No other recipes for this soup called for that, so trust me, I am sure the soup tastes fine without it. But if you are daring, I highly recommend adding the paprika! I adore it!

*Use whatever milk/cream base you like. Last time I made this, I used 1/2 cup of heavy cream (leftover from Aunt Peg's Chowder recipe earlier in the week) and 1/2 cup of lactose-free 2% milk. It was great! Another time, I used only "normal people" 2% milk, and that tasted fine too. It depends on how creamy and thick you want your soup. Or how healthy you want it.

*The longest part of making this meal is chopping the veggies. When I make it, I have help from my darling husband. We talk about our days and chop the veggies together. It makes the time go much quicker. After all, the actually cooking takes less than 20 minutes! I strongly recommend chopping veggies with someone else, though that is completely up to you. Maybe other people can chop veggies faster than I can... :)

One last picture: